Translation - EnglishIntroduction
The occurrence of IT revolution of the information and network society, and the advancement of top technologies has changed the growth pattern of the world economy since the 1990s (). In the past decade the production process underwent some changes; the traditional factors of production such as natural resources, work and capital became of less significance, whereas the importance of intangible resources such as information and knowledge increased () in such a way that in recent decades, the structure of tangible and intangible assets of organizations has changed (); and intellectual capital was introduced as one of these intangible resources and assets, which is still vague for the consumers and the scientific community (Mohammadi Pirasteh, et al.). Intellectual capital is a new issue which has been globally brought forth to discussion both theoretically and practically in the recent years and is regarded as a valuable resource for countries and organizations. Because of its growth and development, intellectual capital is turning into an index of the development of countries, one of the most value-increasing resources of companies, and also a key capital for entrepreneurship and efficiency (). Intellectual capital is the representative of collective knowledge embedded in the staff members, common organizational trend, and the network relations of organizations (). Intellectual capital is called “the performance stimulus” (My translation) of many organizations (). Intellectual capital in organizations is the result of investment in knowledge, information, intellectual assets, and experience (). According to the researchers, intellectual capital usually covers three main dimensions related to each other: human capital, relational capital and structural capital (). On the other hand, intellectual capital is one of the important organization capabilities which can cause sustainable organizational advantage in one organization, compared to other organizations. In this regard, Zahedi et al. () proposed a model for better management of these capitals in order to measure and evaluate the level of intellectual capital in cultural-governmental organizations of the country. Their model consists of four main dimensions: human capital, bridging capital, structural capital and social capital. In the modern knowledge-based economy which emphasizes the significance of intellectual capital, and the urgent need for measurement and management of its benefits and costs, banks and financial institutions possess huge resources of intellectual capital, and if they do not try to make a framework for giving an account of intellectual capital and its hidden values, they will be about to lose these intangible resources. In fact, intellectual capital is one of the vital resources of the development of banks ().
On one hand, regarding today’s changing environment, strategic managers should focus their attention on rapid environmental changes and decisions getting complicated and on the necessity of adopting a comprehensive strategic program in order for confronting with problems more than before, as well as paying attention to planning and control. They should rely on a dynamic, forward-looking, holistic and contingent mind, and solve the current complicated problems with strategic management. Strategic management actually consists of science and art of formulation, implementation and evaluation of decisions; it is a multiple responsibility which enables the organization to achieve its long-term goals. As it is inferred from the above definition, in order for the organizational success to be achieved several factors are emphasized in strategic management: coordinating management, marketing, financial issues (accounting), production (operation), research and development, and computer information systems. Strategic management process comprises of three stages: formulating strategies, implementing the strategies, and evaluating the strategies (Samadi, et al.)
The studies that can be related to the relationship between strategic management process and intellectual capital in this regard, are as follows:
Yarmohammadzadeh (), in his Ph.D. thesis entitled “investigating multiple relationships between stages of strategic management process and of knowledge conversion process, and intellectual capital components from the viewpoint of science committee members of Isfahan state universities”, has explored the relationship between strategic management process and intellectual capital components. The results of the regression analysis show that there is a significant relationship between the stages of strategic management (strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation) and the components of intellectual capital (human capital and structural capital), but customer capital, another component of intellectual capital, has no meaningful relationship with any of the stages of strategic management process.
Mooghali et al., (2015) have carried out the research entitled “the analysis on relationship among organizational justice and intellectual capital (central municipality of Shiraz)”. The sample being studied in this research consists of 140 answerers who are randomly selected. The analysis of the data collected show that there is a positive correlation between organizational justice and intellectual capital, and also a meaningful relationship between its dimensions respectively, including human, relational (customer) and structural dimensions, and organizational justice to the level of 99%.
Andrew Munthopa Lipunga (2015), in an article entitled “intellectual capital performance of the commercial banking sector of Malawi” states that intellectual capital is considered as a definite competitive advantage in the current knowledge-based economy. This study used the value added intellectual capital coefficient (VAICTM) in order to measure performance, from 2010 to 2013 plus the performance level categorizations. The results indicate that the sampled commercial banks achieved on average, common performance in all the years under study, except in 2011 when they achieved good performance.
Kong (2007), in an article entitled “the strategic importance of intellectual capital in nonprofit sector” presented that the effectiveness of intellectual capital concept in nonprofit sector is more than other concepts of strategic management. Intellectual capital is an important resource that non-profit organizations need to develop in order to gain sustained strategic advantage.
Having a view on the previously mentioned topics, the significance of intellectual capital and strategic management in organizations is obviously realized. Therefore the necessity of these concepts in an organization requires that some appropriate researches be done in this regard so that better analyses would be achieved. The present study attempts to analyze the relationship between these concepts.
According to the literature of the topic, the research model is as follows:

Diagram 1- a conceptual model of the relationship between strategic management process and intellectual capital
According to the conceptual research model, the research hypotheses are stated as follows:
The main hypothesis:
H1: There is a significant relationship between strategic management process and intellectual capital.
Subsidiary hypotheses:
H2: There is a significant relationship between the components of strategic management process (formulation, implementation, evaluation) and intellectual capital.
H3: The opinions of the staff members about intellectual capital according to demographic variables (sex, age, education, organizational status) are different.